i
WILLIAM H. WHYTE
REDISCOVERING THE CENTER
PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
DoubedA
NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY AUCKLAND
CITY
[ 2Z281
from the street and shopfronts be of see-through. glass. No city has
banned blank walls per se; it seems more effective to require positive
uses. (For the text of the New York statute, see Appendix B.)
Cities would do well to:have: the.discipline of a good statute. This
is especially the case with Smaller and medium-sized cities where the
developers of downtown have lately arrived from suburban mall projects. In on recent center-city. project the developer ruled out streetlevel stores, save a token or two. His leasing agent, he explained, told
him that that kind of retailing wouldn't go in that location. As it most
definitely will not, the design precluding it and a supine planning comrn
mission acquiescing.
16
THE RISE
AND FALL
OF INCENTIVE
ZONING
Blank walls are tough to fight because no one is for them. There
are no civic debates .whether to have them or not. There is often nc
recognition that they have become a problem at all. Their growth i
too incremental. They are the by-product of other causes, many seem.
ingly. good-separation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic, off-street
circulation, and such. Given current momentums, the blank walls wil
continue to spread, even in the most exemplary of cities.
Such as St. Paul, Minnesota. It is the blank-wall capital' of the
United States. You would. not:expect it ,to:'be. It is a most habitable
attractive, and friendly ity; it has, one of the most resourceful an(
effective mayors. in the country; its Lowertown redevelopment is of an
eminently human scale and has a fine street presence. St. Paul also ,ha
one of the most complete skyway systems in the country, and, it i
probably the best designed of all of them.
It is paying a steep price. In a striking example of the Greshan
effect, skyway level has led to'the blanking-out. of street level. Th
result is as drastic as if shop fronts and windows had. been decreec
illegal. There are few to see. The experience is so dull that to walk a
street level is to do penance for not using upper level. Block afte
block, it is blank wall. Occasionally there is a break to indicate wha
might have been-like the trompe l'oeil windows on the wall of,
parking lot.
It is not entirely farfetched to prophsy that one day St. Pau
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level. Atlanta made a tourist attraction of its old underground: streets;
so did Seattle of its Skid Row. But prime shopping streets are a much
greater treasure, and the fact that they have been concealed should
make their reappearance all the more dramatic. Disneyland merchandises a simulation of a street. But cities have something even better:
actual streets. Right under their noses.
C)
It seemed such a splendid idea. Developers wanted to put up buildings
as big as they could. Why not harness their avarice? Planners saw a
way. First, they would downzone. They would lower the limit on the
amount of bulk a developer could put up. Then they would upzone,
with strings. The builders could build over the limit if they provided a
public plaza, or an arcade, or a comparable amenity.
Everyone would win. The developer would get his extra floors;
the public would get an amenity it would not have otherwise; the city
wuuld get nigner property assessments or its
ax
ase; ana all tis
would be brought about without spending an extra penny of public
:k:· funds.
Thus, in 1961, New York embarked on incentive zoning. It
worked. Over the next ten years it was to prompt the creation of more
,'
new open space in the center city than was created in all the other
.
..
cities in the country combined. Other cities followed suit with similar
programs. New York continued its pioneering by moving from across[r, ·
the-board zoning to a flexible, case-by-case approach.
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[230]
CITY
Case by case, developers would be pressing for bigger bonuses yet, I
and a number of imaginative zoning lawyers would help clear the way.
Planners were to show similar resourcefulness in inventing new kinds
of spaces to bonus: gallerias, atriums, garden courts, through-block
circulation areas, covered pedestrian areas, roof gardens. "Fine-tuning
the zoning ordinance," this would be called, or "New York's sophisticated zoning." The euphoria was to run thick.
It should have been a warning. Things were about to go awry..
Developers would soon be putting up buildings bigger than ever; shadows would be getting longer, even on the side streets where everyone
pledged to keep buildings low. But developers would be unhappy; they
weren't making enough money, they said. The planners would be unhappy, and unhappiest of all would be the civic groups. Debacle, they
would cry, and at their behest a massive overhaul of the zoning would
take place.
In this chapter I want to tell how this came about, and the lessons
there are in the experience. They are not peculiar to New York, save in
scale-New York's worst examples are so bad that one is almost proud
of them. But the lessons are considerable pro and con, and those cities
that are now beginning to adopt incentive zoning might well pay them
heed.
Let us start with a look at the antecedents to incentive zoning. In
its earliest form, zoning was for the provision of light. In eighteenthcentury Paris the height of buildings was limited to a multiple of the
width of the streets-low on narrow streets, higher on wide streets.
When New York City instituted zoning in 1916, the same principle
was applied. The recently built Equitable Building, which rose straight
up from the street, was the symbol of what was to be avoided. The
zoning specified that as buildings went upward they had to conform to
a sky exposure plane. This was a specified angle slanting back from the
street-sharply on narrow streets, less so on wide ones. If a building
had enough setbacks in its lower portions, the tower could go straight
up quite a ways. So a number of buildings did, most spectacularly the
Empire State and the Chrysler Building. But the more customary result was the "ziggurat"-a building that looked like a series of successively smaller boxes put on top of one another.
By the late fifties it was evident that a comprehensive overhaul of
the zoning code was badly needed. Over the years, the code had gathered some twenty-five hundred exceptions, in the process more than
doubling in bulk. Most important, the zoning had been much too
permissive on density. As horror sketches circulated by reform groups
showed it, New York would be a solid mass of towers if building
continued on to the legal limits. Clearly, some downzoning was in
order.
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Zoning landmark: the Equitable Building-which started the whole thing in
1916.
The planners thought so, and in the proposed new code they
sharply reduced the allowable density. They did this through the device of the floor-area ratio. This was the multiplier the developer could
apply to the number of square feet in his lot to get the total number of
square feet in his building. For commercial districts this was set at a
multiple of fifteen f.a.r. This meant that the developer could build the
amount of square feet in his lot times fifteen. He could mass them in a
squat building or go up higher with a tower that covered less of the lot.
There were no height limitations as such. In practice, however,
the f.a.r. did impose a ceiling. Towers can become uneconomic as they
[232]
CITY
IVz Rise and Fall of Incentive Zoning
ng comparable spaces, the zoning offered them a deal: for every
square foot of plaza space builders provided, they could add 10 square
feet of office space. This would raise their total floor space by 20
,ercent, and the f.a.r. from fifteen to eighteen. The bonus, furthernore, would be as-of-right: if the builders followed the guidelines prescribed in the zoning, their plans would be assured of approval, and no
special reviews or permits would be needed.
All in all, it was an attractive package, and builders took to it.
There had been, of course, much opposition from builders to the proposed new zoning, but the bonus swung over enough of them to gain a
:ritical margin of support.
There were doubters. Would not the exception beg the question of
he rule? If fifteen f.a.r. was judged the right top limit, how could a
higher one be right too? Planners felt the answer was in the offset. The
xtra density, they believed, would be more than compensated for by
he extra amenity.
Others thought so, too. Civic groups saw the 1961 zoning as a
reat forward step and they were not inclined to nitpick over theoretial problems. Nor were the builders. Hailed on all sides, incentive
oning was off to a promising start.
The bonus proved almost embarrassingly successful. Over the
ext decade, with no exceptions, every developer who put up an office
uilding took advantage of the plaza bonus. Between 1961 and 1973
ome 1.1 million square feet of new open space was created that wayiore than in all of the other cities of the country combined.
Inexpensive sun-study technique developed by ProfessorBrent Porterof Brooklyn 'sPrattInstitute. He takes a set of models out into the sun and cants them
until the shadow of the stick (right) coincides with the mark for an hour of the
day. Thus oriented, the models cast shadows as those actual buildings would.
poke up higher and slimmer. Given the size of most office-building
sites, somewhere around thirty to thirty-two stories is the practical
limit for buildings of fifteen f.a.r.
By eliminating the sky-is-the-limit feature of the old zoning, the
floor-area ratio limited the bulk that could be put up in the city. But it
would not unduly limit builders. Fifteen f.a.r. is a lot of building.
Builders had been doing quite well putting up buildings of that size,
and there was a good bit of empirical justification for setting it as the
base limit. It was the median bulk of the office buildings put up since
World War II.
There was to be a sweetener. To get the builders behind the new
zoning, the planners offered in incentive bonus. The first application
would be for plazas. The planners had been much impressed by the
recently completed Seagram Building. It was handsome, introduced
lots of space and light, and made possible a sheer tower far more
elegant than the old set-back buildings. To prod builders into provid-
This should have
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very quickly, real estate people figure they might have set the rents out
too
low. The planning commission might well have concluded that it had
underpriced the bonus. It certainly seemed clear that the benefits for
builders were great. Some suspected they might be scandalously so.
In a later cost-benefit analysis of incentive zoning, Jerold S.
Kayden computed the construction costs, to the developers, of the
plazas built between 1961 and 1973. They came to $3,820,278. In
return for this, developers were able to put up 7,640,556 square feet of
additional commercial space. Multiplying this by the average net capitalized value per square foot of $2 3 .87-a conservative estimateKayden got a bonus value of $186,199,350. To put it another way, for
each dollar he put out for a plaza, a developer reaped nearly $48 worth
of extra space.
In many cases the developers' leverage was greater yet. Many
were able to take advantage of various tax abatement incentives the
city periodically offered. This was done to moderate building slumps;
but cycles being what they are, the abatements tended to be consummated at the peaks of booms.
Were the developers getting too much? No, said the planners.
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[2341
CITY
Both could argue that the
presumed spread between cost and profit
The larger costs of
was
only
theoretical,
and
that
in any event it was not a charge on the
incentive zoning have
been in the loss of sun public. The extra space the developer got came out of the air--quite
and light. It is a loss literally, with those extra floors-and did not cost the city anything.
rarely counted.
The true costs, however, are not measured in cash outlays, or in
land or construction costs. They are the sun and the light that are
sacrificed, and the additional load of people on community facilities.
But the offsetting benefits of a well-used plaza can go far beyond the
direct costs of providing them.
Did any plazas do this? No one really knew.
The planning commission had set up an urban design group and
had spun off similar groups to work in specific development areas.
They were staffed with an outstanding group of young architects, planners, and lawyerstand they went about their work with imagination
and elan. I had an opportunity to observe this, for at the time, I was
working on the text of the commission's comprehensive plan for the
city. In it, properly enough, there was a salute to the innovative approaches of the staff people and the new spaces they were creating.
But how well were the new spaces working out? There had been
no mechanism for monitoring the program. In all that large staff, there
was no one person who had the job of going out and checking up on
the results. In a draft of the plan, I floated a proposal for setting up an
evaluative unit. It got nowhere.
This was one of the reasons I set up the Street Life Project. As I
recount elsewhere, I thought that observation of how people used city
spaces would be useful for such specific matters as plazas and arcades.
What I most hoped to demonstrate was the general applicability of the
approach and the simplicity of the techniques involved.
It was obvious that a lot of the places were awful: sterile, empty
spaces not used for much of anything except walking across. But a few
were excellent. When I showed the planners time-lapse films of nothing happening on some plazas, lots on others, they agreed that further
case-and-effect study was in order. Plannifig commission chairman
Donald Elliott thought it could help frame new zoning standards. We
struck a bargain. My group would try to determine what made good
plazas work and bad plazas not work, and the reasons why. If these
could be translated into tight guidelines, the commission would incorporate them in a new open-space zoning section.
That is what happened. Nailing down the guidelines was easy;
getting them through the mill took some time. They were as-of-right,
as most of the zoning guidelines to date had been, and spelled out in
considerable detail what the rules of the game were-the maximum
I
The Rise and Fall of Incentive Zoning
z.
permissible height of the plaza, the amount of seating, the minimum
number of trees, and so on.
Opponents argued that guidelines would cramp architects' freedom and dictate design by formula. The best rebuttal to this was made
by the chairman of the local chapter of the American Institute of
Architects, Herbert Oppenheimer. Testifying in favor of the legislation,, he argued that tough guidelines would not mean less freedom for
the architect, but more. Without guidelines, he said, the developer
would call all the shots. If there were no requirements for seating, for
example, there would likely be no seating because that is the way the
developer would probably want it. If there were requirements there
would be choice where there had been none before. Since our adversaries were bewailing the plight of architects, the testimony carried a lot
of weight. In May 1975 the Board of Estimate approved the new
guidelines.
The guidelines had a salutary effect. The handwringing over their
tightness proved unfounded. Once they were on the books the developers went along, quite equably. Over the ensuing ten years there was to
be no complaint by a developer or architect over the basic guidelines.
Builders put in benches and chairs, they planted trees, and some
went far beyond the minimum requirements in providing flowers and
food kiosks and the like. The new zoning also encouraged the retrofit
of existing plazas, and a number of hitherto dead ones were brought to
life. The zoning guidelines were adopted by other cities, sometimes in
such detail that they repeated the precise dimensions that had been
derived from our New York prototypes. The formula for figuring the
amount of sitting space to be required-l linear foot for every 30
square feet of plaza space-was a back-of-the-envelope compromise
between linear-feet people and square-feet people. It has been enshrined in countless zoning ordinances across the country and it works
just fine.
So far, so good. Before long, however, some clouds appeared. The
city's financial ratings slipped a bit, then a bit more. Soon the city was
near bankruptcy. In highly publicized moves, a number of large corporations moved their headquarters to suburbia, and more seemed ready
to join them. The building boom collapsed. From a level of 12,260,000
square feet in 1973, construction of office space fell to 360,000 in 1976.
The builders pled for help. They wanted to be able to build bigger
and taller buildings. They wanted to build them on side streets as well
as avenues. In addition to the financial problems they faced, builders
had been running out of good sites. The eastern part of midtown had
been so picked over that what was left were sites too small to build on
profitably under construction rules. Builders might have concluded
that what the market was saying was to go west. But they saw a
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[2351
[2 3 6]
CITY
The Rise and Fall of Incentive Zoning
simpler message. Change the rules.
The planing commission cooperated. Its urban design people were
conceiving new kinds of bonuses: for through-block corridors, covered
pedestrian areas, arcades, and atriums. They even gave extra bonuses
for shops in atriums. By combining all these bonuses with development-rights transfers, zoning-lot mergers, and other techniques, developers could raise the floor-area ratio above' 18. The bonuses, furthermore, applied to large sites as well as small ones: notably, the AT&T
Building, the IBM Building, and the Trump Tower, the latter ending
up at an f.a.r, of 21.6. More important than the increase in bulk,
however, was a change in the review process. To rationalize the bulk
there had to be.
There were two ways to get a project through. One was as-ofright. In this approach the developer hewed to the standard zoning
provisions and asked no special favors or exceptions. This spared him
appearing before review bodies. He didn't even have to call on the
planning commission or the community board. If the building department found his plans in order, that would be that.
The other way was the special permit route. This way the developer had to go through a time-consuming review process. This was
simplified somewhat as the Uniform Land Use Review Process, or
ULURP. It set firm deadlines for each step of the review. In the notes
at the end of this book there is a more detailed description. Suffice it to
say here that the developer was offered attrade-off. He would have to
submit to a series of negotiating sessions but he could ask for more of
what he wanted-for example, more bulk.
Let us look at the pros and cons. The New York experience is by
no means unique; the lessons it may afford recur in project review
processes everywhere. To stick to the rules of the game? To be flexible
and work things out case by case? The contentious history of review
boards is a series of alternations between the two approaches.
Each has strong pros and strong cons. The as-of-right approach is
rigid. It sets down beforehand, and in sometimes stupefying detail, the
rules that must be followed: the minimum ize of a plaza, for example,
its maximum elevation above grade, and so on. It makes few distinctions for differences in site, and while it is meant to be objective, it
does tend to produce the kind of design that the people who made up
the rules like. In the case of the 1961 zoning, this was the free-standing
tower set in open space, as the Seagram Building was.
But as-of-right has important advantages. For the developer there
is certainty. Time is within his control. If he goes by the book he gets
approval. The rules are clear and they are posted before the game
begins. The homework has to be done by the planners before the regu-
lations are drafted; they apply to all comers equally and they eliminate
the red tape of the case-by-case approach. If the guidelines are found
wanting, as they were with the plaza bonus, they can be amended.
The special permit approach offers much more flexibility. It allows planners to tailor design requirements to particular situationsoften with a better fit to the intent of the law than to the letter of it. In
the negotiating sessions, furthermore, improvements in the design can
be suggested-and adopted-that would not have been under the asof-right approach.
The planners have cards to play. The clock is ticking away on
some high-cost borrowed money and the developer is anxious to expedite matters. The planners are in a position to suggest amenities and
they usually push the developer quite hard in this respect-getting the
developer to put in an extra escalator, for example, or public toilets on
the ground floor.
But one trump card the planners gave up: the shield of bureaucratic procedure. No longer could they invoke as-of-right regulations
to justify a hard-nosed stance. Under the special permit approach, as
the developers well knew, the planners could bend the regulations and
if necessary make up new ones to fit. To put it baldly, they could spotzone.
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[237]
In pressing for accommodation, the developer would have strong
cards of his own. He would be helping the city's economy, creating
jobs, increasing the tax base. Important people would be on his side.
The pressures for acquiescence on the planners were considerablefrom the mayor's office, from commercial groups, from leading businessmen, from anyone who cared about building a better city and did
not want to see it hamstrung by bureaucratic nit-picking.
Such pressures are normal, and yielding to them was nothing
new. What was novel was the way in which the yielding was rationalized as an advanced form of zoning sophistication. Take, for example,
the atrium bonus. It was hedged with all sorts of conditions as to the
impact of the building on its surroundings, and it could not be granted
unless the planning commission made favorable findings on all of
them. This it was very able to do, even under difficult circumstances.
It simply declared the impact would be favorable.
The reductio ad absurdum of review is the city's Environmental
Quality Review process. As a condition of approval, building projects
must be certified as posing no significant adverse effects on the environment. Few major projects have been found to have adverse effects.
Indeed, few have been found to have had any significant effects, adverse or otherwise.
How could this be so? The answer lies in who fills out the forms.
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[238]
The Rise and Fall of Incentive Zoning
CITY
The principal investigative instrument is the Project Data Statement.
Here are two of the questions, exactly as phrased:
1. Will project change in pattern, scale or character of general area of
site, i.e-is the project different from surrounding development?
-Yes
No
2. Will project change in demand for municipal services (police, fire,
water, sewage, schools, health facilities, etc.? Yes .. No
The Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue was a case in point. Both
questions were answered by a check mark in the "No" box. All of the
other questions were given similarly favorable answers. And why not?
The answers were filled in by the architect. There is no evidence that
any independent investigation was made of these matters-such as a
study of the shadows that might be cast. In due course, the environmental review process produced its determination: the project would
"have no significant effect on the environment."
No significant effect. No change in scale. Wow. Fifty-five stories
of glass. The board might well have said that yes, indeed, the building
will affect its surroundings, but on balance the good will outweigh the
bad. It might also have raised a question about the additional municipal services needed and the palpably silly statement that the building
21
would require none. But the board said "no significant effect."
Getting planning commission approval of a project required
much more effort. As an opening gambit a developer might come up
with a fright plan. This would show the dreadful building he could put
up under existing regulations if he was of a mind to. Since almost any
other plan would be a great improvement, the planners would be in
ii
the happy position of being able to make helpful changes. And so they
did. If lay critics still found the building dreadful, the planners would
have a rejoinder. If you think this plan is bad, you should have seen
the first one.
More often, the developer went for thd big one right off. He had
the architect design a building with every bonus possible and some
possible new ones to get the building hig4er yet. The commission
would demur. Part of the way up. But not all. In granting him his
increase in bulk, accordingly, it could refer to the increase as a decrease. A builder, for example, starts out with a plan for a twenty-fivestory building and presses for bonuses that will take it up to thirty-five
stories. He ends up with thirty-two stories. Thus is the building "re- ii
duced" by three stories. The developer asked for the stars. The comMi
mission would only give him the moon.
The commission would draft special legislation to make the particular project legal, and lest it be thought spot zoning, it would be
I
[2391
written as if it were of general applicability. There was not the grace of
a wink. With great solemnity such legislation set forth the needs and
benefits that the commission must find before giving approval. Invariably, the commission did so find. For his part, the developer was enoined by the legislation to do a number of things that it was in his selfnterest to do: obey all appropriate construction rules and regulations;
iire security guards; keep the place clean. Lastly, he had to "conform
the plan to the zoning"-a staggeringly redundant provision, the zonng having been written to conform to the plan.
As time goes on, a planner can come to identify with the project
ie is monitoring, and sometimes he can become a strong advocate of
t. His own suggestions are incorporated into it. He has lived with it,
often for a very long time. He sees the problems the builder and the
architect face.
The common bond is the scale model of the structure. It can be
entrapping. Once you start moving around those pieces of white cardboard, you partly possess a place; and in these minor manipulations of
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IhaL is ramer pleasing. t's like
mapping a place; it is no more yours than it was before, but you
feel
that it is just the same.
One night, probably in some church basement, the builder and
architect and the planner take the model before citizen members of the
community board. Here are critics. And they act the part. For sheer
rancor, unfair criticism, and rudeness, there is nothing like some of
these public zoning meetings. One gets an idea of what a revolutionary
people's court must be like. I've seen architects treated like brigands,
lawyers interrupted with hoots and derisive laughter. It is a hell of an
experience.
But stay the tears. The money and the power are on one side. The
developer can bring in top experts. His lawyer will probably be one of
the few people in the city who understands the zoning code. The
experts may be given a critical reception by some of the members, but
the board will usually have no counterexperts to refute them. The
distinguished architect will probably be very skilled at the art of the
presentation; most distinguished architects are, and board members
appreciate this. Many have become connoisseurs of the art of the presentation, and they find the better architects tend to be the most disarming in their willingness to listen to board members' suggestions.
Philip Johnson is a master at this. I don't know if any of the board
members' suggestions ever ended up in the actual designs, but they
certainly were gracefully received.
And then there are the models. Even the most truculent of board
members can be entranced. The models look so clean and white, lit
from beneath with a benign glow. If only buildings could be lit that
Scale models can be
entrapping. Once you
start moving around
those white pieces of
cardboard,.you are
hooked. Go on, says
the architect, lift off thi
roof. Come into my
parlor.
[240]
CITY
The Rise and Fall of. Incentive Zoning
way, how splendid the city would bel And there are the movable roofs,
just waiting to be picked up. You can look right down into the atrium,
If you keep playing around with the model, you will soon be thor
oughly hooked.
As they have gained in experience, the community boards hav(
become less confrontational and more expert. They can still give devel
opers a very hard time if they think the plan is bad. They are genuinely
delighted, however, when a developer comes up with a well-designec
one, and they can be downright polite. Their suggestions are oftei
quite helpful and have led to substantial improvements in projects.
On major questions of size and shape however, the boards have
no power. They do have some leverage, for the city's ruling bodies di
not like to approve what the boards disapprove. In the end, however
the ruling bodies do approve. Since the boards anticipated this woule
be the case, they can be excused earlier hotfoots and catcalls.
To clinch approvals developers invoke "the numbers." No, a de
veloper will concede, the project is not perfect. But it is the best possi
ble set of compromises that could be arrived at. The numbers worl
out, albeit just barely. But change just one element and the whol
thing will come apart.
Thus the intractability of John Portman's design for his Time
Square Hotel. When he proposed it in 1969, the planning commissio:
was delighted. It was pushing for the revitalization of the theatre die
trict and it thought the hotel would be a fine catalyst. But many peopl
disagreed. The project would require the demolition of three legitimat
theatres, and this seemed a poor way to revitalize. Another probler
was the design. With its street level dominated by vehicle roadwa3
and parking access, with its sides lined with blank concrete, it const
tuted a virtual declaration of war on the New York street.
For one reason or another the project was delayed, and it was not
until 1982 that construction began. Much had changed in the meantime; the design had not. Zoning now mandated retailing at street level
and discouraged blank walls. But save for a few token changes, the
walls remained largely blank. The architects would not budge. The
planners did not effectively press them to, and so it was that the planning commission that sought a lively streetscape became the champion
of a major contravention of it. In early 1986 the hotel opened with the
1969 design intact, like a gigantic mammoth frozen in the tundra.
[2411
ion that so wanted those zoning changes will move to Stamford. The
developer will move to New Jersey.
It would serve them right. But civic officials rarely call such
bluffs, especially when the city finances are in straits, as so often they
Lre. A city in that stance is a developer's city, and a great many in the
Jnited States are exactly that.
To resist such pressures, planning commissions need support.
They need the support of civic groups that will raise hell with them. In
New York the groups that most strongly support planning, urban deign, and preservation appear at public hearings to testify against comnission proposals as often as for them, and they are usually most
ifective when they are against. Planners can be aggrieved with such
riends but they can also see their usefulness. The countervailing presure puts the planners in a better negotiating stance with developers.
In the review process the place to stake out is the middle of the
oad. Planners do this by directing developers' attention to the threats
rom the extremists on the flanks: from the do-gooders, Municipal Art
Society groupies, Sierra Club types, smart-aleck public interest law'ers, and others who would be quick to spot any fault with the project,
protest giveaways, demand strict observance of zoning regulations,
nd take other extreme positions. When planners cannot invoke credible threats of this kind, when they do not themselves feel the heat, it is
sign that civic groups have become too supportive and constructive
nd reasonable. That is when zoning and planning go to hell.
By 1980 it appeared that planning was indeed going to hell. Bulk
was begetting bulk. The very anticipation of increases was making
them self-fulfilling. When it became known that builders could get
lore bulk on a site than the nin;n h-; i ollr.- r A-.
..c., I
.built into the price of the land. Most deals between developer and
landowner were on a contingency basis: so much money if no zoning
change sweetened the pot; so much if there was a zoning change.
There was some speculative risk, to be sure; whatever the zoning, it
was necessary that the project get the planning commission's approval.
The market's assumption that it would be forthcoming was one of the
more severe judgments made about the commission.
If the commission did balk at giving an increase, developers could
plead hardship. Their public argument: they paid through the nose for
the land on the expectation that they would get the extra bulk to
justify the price they paid. If the city now goes back on its implied
promise, it renders the deal unprofitable, and that means an unfair
taking. It is a crass argument, but surprisingly effective.
In almost every case the planners waived the height and setback
regulations. The 1961 zoning had specified that towers could cover no
f1
'4
I1
i
,I
The final issue in controversies is patriotism. Why are you dogooders kicking the city? Why are you spitting on city hall? If the
project is now jeopardized over some niggling little problem, everyone
is going to lose. The bankers will pull out. Thousands of construction
jobs will be lost. So will millions in extra tax revenues. The corpora-
i
1
t
[242]
CITY
'he Rise and Fall of Incentive Zoning
[2431
more than 40 percent of the lot and had to be set back from the street
f the new ones bombed very badly and very visibly. The builders
at least fifty feet. With big sites, developers did not mind this; with
Rocketed the extra floors of rentable space, but they didn't put in the
smaller sites, however, the setbacks meant their towers would be
iops and things in the spaces where they promised they would. The
smaller and less profitable than they would like. The planners accomommission said that this was really very bad of the builders but that
modated them. One member of.the commission, Vice-Chairman Mart the time there was not much that it could do about it.
tin Gallent, protested the waivers. But they were the rule. Most of the
Sometimes the lack of shops and amenities was due to a change of
towers approved in the late seventies covered more than 40 percent of
wnership, with the new man saying he didn't know anything about
the lot; in the Wall Street area, coverage went as high as 80 percent.
any commitment and denying he was bound by it anyway. New York
And the buildings were a lot closer to the street than fifty feet. Some,
responded feebly when first confronted with such recalcitrants. But
indeed, rose sheer from the building line and kept going straight upeventually enough fuss was raised by civic groups for the city to take
just like the Equitable Building that stirred New York into zoning in
:; action.
the first place.
But how effectively? One problem in enforcement has been the
As structures grew bigger, they put enormous speculative pres,, lack of practical sanctions. The city can give a slap on the wrist or it
sure on nearby sites. Indeed, the possibility of similar structures can
i, ': can drop the atom bomb-revoke the developer's certificate of occudoom the destruction of the buildings that are most important to save.
pancy. This can mean giving the tenants the right to withhold rent, a
Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue are examples. Not only are
measure so draconian as to be rarely invoked. One building owner was
they important stores, but their scale and their moderate height are
so obdurate, however, that the city did revoke his certificate of occuvital to their surroundings. Bergdorf Goodman contributes to the
pancy. This was for 2 Lincoln Square, a combination office building,
amenity of the Pulitzer Plaza area by letting lots of sun fall in it, and
residential tower, and, regional headquarters for the Mormons. The
its. white limestone fagade bounces enough secondary light onto Fifth
building had been granted an extra six floors as a bonus for providing
Avenue to raise light levels several footcandles.
a landscaped off-street plaza. But all that was ever provided was an
A twelve-story building occupying 100 percent of a site would
empty space. It was so bad that I periodically stopped by to update my
ordinarily be an economical use of land and not so very far under the ,
photographic record of outstandingly bad spaces. I could always count
zoning limit-about three floors' worth. Any rise in that limit, how. on the place being dark, strewn with litter, bereft of benches and bereft
ever, greatly magnifies the attraction of the building. Developers pyra: of people. After the city acted in May 1983, there was an indication
mid their financing on a very small amount of their own cash, and any
that the residential tenants might withhold their rents. Finally, in
upward change in the extra floor space will be highly leveraged. This is !:' 1988, a deal was consummated by which the space would be taken
the edge developers seek. If the zoning goes up from 15 to 18 f.a.r., the
. over by, the Folk Art Museum.
extra floor space potential doubles; at 21.6 it more than triples. The V":':*"' Sometimes the badness of a plaza is seized upon as reason for the
twelve-story building is now obsolete, worth more dead than alive. It
worsening of it. A case in point is Grace Plaza, a big, barren slab of a
was not the impartial working of the marketplace that endangered
place that was so inhospitable to people it came to be populated
such buildings; it was the New York City Planning Commission and
largely by drug dealers. The developer responded by putting up an
its permissive zoning.
i. iron fence. This was clearly against the commitment for which the
developer had been given extra floors, and the planning commission
One issue that was coming to the fore was the failure of some
forced the dismantling of the fence. The developer then retained a
developers to provide the amenities they promised. With plazas so
former head of the commission's urban design group. The plaza was a
much the rule, planners were busy bonusing other off-street spacesi
hopeless cause, the planner said. Why not fill it in with a two-story
. shopping mall?
from sidewalk widenings to recessed sidewalks, to shopping arcades
within buildings, to through-block circulation areas. This progression
The developer was enthusiastic, Well, he should have been. For
from street to interior culminated in the covered pedestrian area. Citifailure of the plaza, he was set on the path to reward. The audacity of
corp's dazzling court was a prototype, and the city urged developers to
' the idea garnered support, including that of Community Board Five.
follow suit with atriums and gallerias.
l:
But the planning commission was aghast, as were civic groups, and the
New York would soon have been awash with atriums had not two i
idea foundered. For years it remained a plaza in limbo. But a simpler
[2441
In the matter of zoning
bonuses and
incentives, what you do
not specify you do not
get.
CITI
rhre Rise n d all of Incentive Zoning
[245]
In the late seventies matters came to a head. One after. the other,
solution may now be tried: make the place attractive. The Project fo
some very big buildings were started. The cumulative effect worried
Public Spaces has drafted a plan that calls for, among other things
people-especially where the buildings were to be cheek to jowl, as on
food kiosks, lots of chairs and tables, extensive programming of musi
Madison Avenue. And where would it end? The planning commission
and events.
iad been granting so many special dispensations and rule changes that
Other cities have had similar problems. Cincinnati is one. I
the two volumes of the zoning code had grown monstrously fat.
Fountain Square it has the finest square in the country, and it has bee
Civic groups were up in arms: park people, historic preservationrightly concerned over what happens to the square's surroundings. Fc
architects, landscape architects. Newspapers and magazine arti$20.
sts,
spent
a developer who planned a hotel-office complex, the city
million clearing a site on the south flank of the square. In return the I,
cles scolded the commission. IThe commission itselft berated the state ot
developer was to provide a glass-enclosed public space as an indoor :Ni zoning. When a coalition of groups proposed a major study; a foundacounterpart.
tion offered to help with a grant if the commission would tackle the
What the city got was ten thousand square feet of nothing: no ;
job. The commission accepted and in 1979 launched the Midtown
benches, no chairs, no tables, no snack facilities, no amenities save I
Zoning Study.
displays at Christmas. The mayor voiced his displeasure. So did the
As one of the people who had been beefing about the zoning, I
Urban Design Review Board. "The most vapid interior space with ,
was put on the spot by the commission as a consultant. My task: to
supposedly civic overtones I've ever seen in this country or else.- .
evaluate the various incentive bonuses and the spaces they produced.
where," said member David Niland.
Which were working? Which should be kept? Strengthened? Dropped?
The developer's people continued to thumb their noses. What
As on the plaza study, I used time-lapse photography, observathey promised, they said, was an exciting place to walk through, not to
tion, and simple head counting to check out the spaces. It was not
sit in. Would guests of the Westin Hotel like to see riffraff sitting on
difficult. The evidence was overwhelming. Most of the spaces were not
benches? A group of civic leaders carted in some tables and chairs and ,?:
working well-certainly not well enough to warrant the very generous
staged a brown bag sit-in. The developer was unmoved. He would not
subsidies given for them. Worse yet, in an ill-conceived effort to reduce
put in seating. He still won't.
"pedestrian congestion on the streets," the planners were bonusing
To repeat: in matters of zoning incentives and bonuses, what you
people away from the streets.
do not specify, you do not get. And it better be in writing.
Here are the principal spaces and what I found out about them:
The most flagrant nose-thumbing in New York was done by ;
Through-Block Circulation Areas: These were planner's spaces.
apartment house developers. They were awarded bonuses for providThe idea was to reduce pedestrian congestion on the sidewalks by
ing parklike public spaces at the base of their buildings, but they cusproviding spaces running through buildings. I checked all of such
tomarily barred the public from using them. They even put up spikes
spaces and found that most of the people using them were going into
on the ledges so that people would not sit on them.
the building. Remarkably few people used the passageways as a street
In 1977, as a follow-through to the plaza legislation, the planning
to shortcut through. They preferred the real street, and even in the
commission strengthened the zoning to assure both public access and ,.
coldest weather. In January, during a period when 250 people an hour
retailing along the street frontage. Still developers thumbed their ?
were using the Olympic Tower passageway some 4,500 people were
noses. Around the corner from where I live a developer put up a
using the parallel sidewalk of Fifth Avenue.
building with dummy storefronts instead of the real stores required by
As for the relieving of congestion, there was no lessening of the
the zoning. He installed spikes on the ledges of the "park." The city
flows
on the side-street sidewalks. How could there have been? The
has not so much as rapped his knuckles.
through-block
passages were not alternatives to the sidewalks, but
The cases I have been discussing are ones where the developer ?t
Short
of descending on the building from a helicopter, one
connectors.
welshed. Most developers did not. With few exceptions, office building
with connector without using the sidewalks.
could
not
traverse
developers provided the stipulated amenities. But those exceptions
Networks: To promote networks of such corridors,
Through-Block
were so visible and they festered so long that people got the idea the
proposed
that where a lot ran between two streets, the
the
planners
was
to
belief
but
the
not,
It
was
project.
on
every
had
being
city was
developer should provide a through-block passage and, where possible,
have as much to do with the disenchantment over incentive zoning as
line it up with any passages on the other side of the street. Such
any other factor.
passages would be both mandated and bonused.
k)S
)
)
CITY
[246]
The Rise and Fall of Incentive Zoning
[247]
And what happens when it rains? A surprising number of people
There were some partial networks already. One lay in the long
keep right on going. If it really starts to pour, they will veer inward to
blocks between Fifth and Sixth avenues in midtown. Most were within
gain cover; in a light drizzle, save for those who are going to go into
office buildings of the 1920s and 1930s-two hundred feet deep, with
the building, the majority will stick to the outer sidewalk.
elevators and newsstands in the middle of the passage and, in some
certainly
these
have
the
knowledeeable.
it.
Tn
hnne
linina
..... rt-ail
One benefit arcaded sidewalks are supnosed to provide is a better
*W.a…
PI setting for retail shops and window shopping. Most arcaded sidewalks
from
north
way
the
of
most
zag
and
zig
can
One
been an amenity.
do feature retailing and that is to the good. But there is one great
Forty-second to Fifty-third Street and be under cover about two thirds
drawback. The extra space recesses the shops away from the main
of the time. Most of the traffic is highly local: few people ever traverse
pedestrian stream. It is difficult to quantify the effect, but in walking
or
block
a
the whole route; most will be en route to destinations within
by such places you will note that the shops lie at the edge of one's
passages
the
blocks,
crosstown
the
of
so. Because of the unusual length
peripheral vision. All you have to do, of course, is turn your head and
serve handily as shortcuts. But in total, as with most off-street flows, B
you'll see the shops. But not so many do so. Occasionally, you will see
the number of people going through each passage will be small, avera passerby do a kind of double take and walk in toward a store to have
there
Were
aging about 200 people per hour during off-peak hours.
,I:
a look. The fact that it took a conscious decision is a measure of lost
would
there
however,
like,
the
and
signage,
better
more connections,
potential. When the shops are right next to the passersby, there are
undoubtedly be stronger flows. The question is how much of a price c
!li
first takes-many of them. There is an analogy here to the entrance to
should be paid for them.
a park. When the entry is virtually part of the sidewalk, when it is easy
builder
a
require
to
No price should be paid. It is entirely in order
to turn into, impulse use is frequent. So with window shopping. The
Why
buildings.
in
through-block
passages
to provide through-block
n
best place for it is by the windows.
bonus them to boot? The builder would be crazy not to provide such a.
Shopping Arcades: Most of the city's shopping arcades were so
passages.
it was almost unfair to cite them as prototypes: bleak corridors
poor
Arcaded Sidewalks: Arcaded sidewalks rank high in the literature
from nowhere to nowhere, and nothing much in between. But
going
of urban design and it is understandable that incentive zoning favored
the arcade at its best. Combining through-block circuconsider
let
us
the
ones-along
of
successful
examples
many
provides
them. Europe
s··
lation with retailing, it can produce a pedestrian amenity of strong
Rue de Rivoli in Paris, for example, where the arcade embraces the
drawing power. London's Burlington Arcade is the most cited examentire walkway between the buildings and the carriageway. The side- Is:
ple; the two best in this country are the arcades of Cleveland and
strip
additional
an
form:
walks bonused in New York are of a different
Providence.
parallel to the regular sidewalk but recessed within the building or :-·
:··
These were set up as commercial ventures. They still are, and the
covered with a cantilevered roof. Thanks to the arcaded portion, the 9:·
discipline of the marketplace has been a reason for their amenity. They
amount of space available for pedestrian movement is about doubled;
have an excellent relationship with the street: high visibility, tightly
and there is overhead cover against rain and snow. To spur developers
scaled walkways, a strong sense of place-and all for sound economic
Lincoln
special
a
sidewalks,
of
arcaded
sequences
continuous
build
to
reasons.
Square zoning district offered floor-area -bonuses to developers of
If they are economic, let developers build them. But no subsidy
buildings along Broadway if they would provide arcaded sidewalks, 8;
a:
be given. If the figures do not work without one, there is probashould
f
and several did so.
?ii.
wrong with the project, and the city would be better off
something
bly
F
People
elsewhere.
They did not work well. Nor have similar ones
if it was not built. By bonusing off-street shopping, the city is tilting
are stubborn. The path they follow is set by the regular sidewalk, and
the scales against on-street retailing.
if there are periodic widenings, they do not change course. As timeCovered Pedestrian Areas: For the planners, the highest form of
lapse studies show, they persist along the original track, and they do so C
;:
space was the atrium, or gallery, or galleria, or court, or, in
interior
heavy.
even when the pedestrian flow is
9;:
the zoning language, covered pedestrian area. The Citicorp atrium was
Why shouldn't they? The pedestrians do not need the extra space, i:
an important prototype. Just as the Seagram Building had helped
and to use it they would have to detour. There is no incentive for that.
shape
the plaza zoning, Citicorp served as a kind of inventory of ameThe overhead cover keeps out the rain; it also keeps out the sun and
inside spaces. It had a roof to the sky, several levels of shops
nities
for
be
to
tend
sidewalks
arcaded
the light of the sky, and as a consequence
and lots of sitting and browsing areas, and it was well
and
restaurants,
of
true
is
this
so,
to
say
sacrilegious
be
may
it
While
gloomy.
and
dark
entertainment. It even had public rest rooms! Sevwith
programmed
some of the dark, medieval passages of Italian cities.
O.;Owi
-
6
*-.
y3_-
--- C
-
____
f
;i.
Thre Rise and Fall of Incentive Zoning
CITY
[248]
eral other successful places came along: the Whitney Museum's sculpture garden in the Philip Morris Building; the garden and gallery of
the new IBM Building.
In another chapter I go into the pros and cons of internal spaces:
c+I
Ui*
~
;n- 4r _-:r:-4- - a410UC
VI pI1YVLkLUaUII,
11
UL IUhIULII,
- 1-- I,
VI ltUkl
_tC r VAL,
1-·r - VJwLWCIs
snag developed. Several members of Community Board #5, which
had jurisdiction over midtown, objected to the park idea. They
thought it would be too good a deal for developers. They objected to
just about everything else being recommended-except our goals,
,hl;/-,
t
,P.r
.r
nn rl'lr
-rL... 1...
..
rt .
.Av,~..
A~..j wLVI Iu
JVV j
.
ltl,111L
1UJL.
UW1 LIe line. Wli
support
like this, it looked as if the whole package of proposals would fail to
pass the city's Board of Estimate.
To see to it that it would pass, then planning chairman John
Zuccotti offered a compromise to Board #5. He would withdraw the
urban park provision for further study and postpone any reintroduction to a later date. Board #5 accepted the compromise and resumed
the fight against the proposals. Fortunately, this was the only real
opposition and the Board of Estimate voted approval.
Now, in 1982, it was that later date. The timing was fortuitous. A
small park just like that envisioned in the proposal had been provided
by the International Paper Company as part of a building-and-plaza
renovation. The park had everything plus the kitchen sink: gourmet
food kitchen, chairs, tables, umbrellas, fountains, trees, sun, jazz, and
lots and lots of people enjoying it all. There could not have been a
better demonstration of the benefits of such a space.
-- Ln
UJUiI
spaces and suburban shopping malls. There is also the problem of
success-setting in motion the destruction of the surroundings they so
need as a foil.
The question at hand, however, was not whether atriums could be
made to work well. Obviously, some worked very well. The question
was whether or not they should be bonused. I believed they should not
be.
The argument is not against atriums-or through-block areas, or
arcaded sidewalks, or gallerias, as such. Here and there they can make
sense, and if the voice of the marketplace tells developers they can
make money from them, they will provide them. But should the provision be public policy? Whatever their merits, these spaces are an internalization of public space and a drain on the vitality of the street. This
is not what planning should be about. The argument, then, is against
paying developers to provide these spaces-against bonusing a hierarchy of spaces the denominator of which is that they are withdrawn
from the street, and the ultimate success of which depends on withdrawing people from the street, as well.
[249]
1:--
I
¥:
.,
l:
ii"
.
3'
!,i
Some spaces earned their way. The ost truly public were plazas,
and a number of them were well used and enjoyed, particularly those In
designed after the 1975 guidelines were laid down. It seemed in order
i
to keep the plaza bonus-better yet, to go a step further and get developers to create small urban parks.
This was a born-again idea. When we were working on the 1975
plaza guidelines, we were uncomfortably aware that in some instances
it would be better if developers did not provide plazas. As Sixth Avenue's string of plazas had demonstrated, the result could be a break in
the continuity of the street wall and a surfeit of space. A smaller space '?
better located would be much preferable. i
Why not, someone suggested, give a bonus for just that-an offsite space? A developer with an avenue site could get his bonus if he ;
would find a small site on a nearby side street, provide a PaleyGreenacre-type park, and maintain it. It would be a good deal for all
concerned. The developer could transfer the unused air rights over the
park to his building site, thereby getting his additional avenue space at
side-street prices. The city would get a small park at the highest order :!
of amenity, and without the burden of maintaining it.
We were still congratulating ourselves on this surefire idea when a
.i
:.,
ii.
i::
Save for those for the plaza and urban park, I recommended that
all the bonuses be dropped. Where a basic public benefit was concerned, it should not have to have a bonus dangled for the providing of
it. It should be mandated. If a building has entrances on two streets, a
person ought to be able to walk through, and without a bonus having
been given the developer for vouchsafing the connection.
A lot of the bonused spaces are glorified lobby spaces. Developers
and corporations have been quite willing to spend their money for
impressive ones, and they should not have to be given incentives to
boot. The same is true of stores at street level. This is vital for the
blockfront, for the building's neighbors, for downtown in general, and
building owners can make money by providing them. There should be
no need to give them a bonus for doing so,
The need is the other way around: to mandate those amenities
that should be mandated-stores, glass you can see through, newsstands, rest rooms, snack facilities. And places to sit. Why pay developers not to put spikes on ledges? Or to build ledges that are not so
high you cannot sit on them? In Renaissance Italy, buildings were
required to make some obeisance to communal usefulness. We should
ask as much.
It would likely be given. Developers are a pragmatic lot. Once
something gets on the books, that is that; they have other things to
worry about than to refight old battles. During the 1975 hearings on
Developers are a
pragmatic lot. Once a
requirement is on the
books, that is that.
They have other thing
to worry about.
Di.
I4
t"
i)
)
?
[250]
CITY
tighter zoning guidelines for open spaces, there was developer testimony that such additional amenities as more trees could tip a man
into bankruptcy. But in all the time since then, no developer has ever
raised objections to the requirements for seating and trees. Indeed,
acceptance of most of the stiffer requirements has been so ungrudging
that one feels a bit like developers whose buildings have rented out
faster than they expected. The price must have been too low.
In their private strategy sessions, developers do not fret over exactions that are in the law. What they discuss is their fallback positions on optional items. What will they willingly give? What only as a
last resort? Shall they hold out on that third escalator the planners
want? Or throw it in early?
Moral: what you do not ask for, you do not get. Ask.
The Rise and Fall of Incentive Zoning
i
I;
[251]
zoning was back. The trouble was, the exceptions were for big buildings: City Spire, Saks tower addition, Coty-Rizzoli. Then there was
the Coliseum project, exempt from any zoning at all since the city
itself owned the site. It set the terms, too, and with an avarice unmatched by all but a few developers.
8(:
:l:i
i::
;
:·'
ki·
In 1982, the planning commission came through with a sweeping
revision of midtown zoning. It asked a lot. It downzoned midtown,
reducing floor-area ratios from a range of 18-21.6 to one of 15-18. On
the West Side, where the planners wanted developers to go, ratios were
left higher.
lit.
With two exceptions-those for plazas and urban parks-bonuses
were dropped. The bonus for a plaza was reduced from an f.a.r. of 3 to ;i:1
an f.a.r. of 1. Leeway was left for atriums in special cases, and for
i'':··
arcades in the theatre district.
The planning commission got tougher about amenities. Instead of
giving bonuses for them, it mandated them. Where, a building fronted
on two side streets, for example, the developer was required to provide
a through-block connection. Since it would be stupid of him not to, the
commission decided it should not give him a bonus to boot.
The commission mandated retail continuity along the street wall,
with stores directly accessible from the street and with fronts of seethrough glass. The commission mandated more and bigger trees. Instead of the skimpy saplings so often planted, the zoning specified trees
of a minimum caliper of four inches, in gratings flush to grade, and
with at least two hundred cubic feet of soil Per tree. This meant that
developers could not palm off little trees in tubs, which many liked to
do so there would be more space underneath for cars. Now they had to
dig.
Finally, the commission said it was going to swear off negotiated
zoning. Skeptics had heard this before and were sure the commission
would revert to its old ways. But it was as good as its word. In the
years just after the passage of the revised zoning, most building projects in midtown went through as-of-right, with no changes asked or
given.
But then, an exception here, an exception there, and negotiated
i
;·
s
a
But the planning commission deserves kudos. It saw that the
zoning had gone awry and it took steps to set matters right. But a
question remains. How was it that the zoning got so very awry? One
school of thought holds that incentive zoning was a good idea that was
flawed in execution. Up to a point this may be true, but there will be
no ad hominem argument here. The planners involved have been of
top calibre; indeed, they made the city's urban design program the
outstanding one in the country. Though there have been changes in
the cast over the years, the same problems have kept coming up, and
they have come up in other cities, too.
The basic flaw has been in the incentive zoning process. It was
bound to go where it has. This is hindsight, to be sure, but there is a
principle of some timelessness involved. If a standard is held up, and
then those who held it up encourage a departure from that standard, a
series of consequences is set in motion. The exceptions beget exceptions, and market pressures spiral up-pressures that confirm the
trend and warp the judgment of those who should resist it.
But there is a contrary way of looking at it. Incentive zoning, it
could be said, was a bad idea, but it was good it was tried. For there
are pluses to count. The zoning has created many open spaces in the
core of the city that would not otherwise have been created. It has
prompted a marked improvement in the provision of places to sit, and
more trees to sit under. It has prompted the creation of indoor public
spaces, several of them of outstanding amenity.
The costs? The value to builders of extra floor space gained by
bonuses has been huge-in the hundreds of millions of dollars. This of
itself is not necessarily bad. What is far more important is what the
public has been getting in return. That, unfortunately, has been too
little. Some of the spaces have been well designed and well used; more
have not,
But the larger costs of incentive zoning have been in the loss of
the most basic of amenities-sun and light. It is a loss that is rarely
counted. The stock apologia is that the shadows are "redundant"that is, they fall in shadows already there, and if there are a few more
to come, they aren't going to make any difference. But they will.
Fifteen f.a.r. is no magic figure, but it does seem a critical threshold as far as sunlight is concerned. It is when buildings go beyond this
-to 18 f.a.r. and above, to forty and fifty stories-that the shadows
One school of thought
holds that incentive
zoning was a good
idea flawed in
execution. But the
basic flaw has been in
the process itself, If
people who hold up
standards then
encourage departures
from those standards,
exceptions beget
exceptions.
[252]
The Rise and Fall of Incentive Zoning
CITY
grow so big, and the abandonment of the old height and setback re.
quirements insures that the darkening will be accentuated. As I take
up in the chapter on sun and light, it is not only the loss of direct
sunlight that hurts, but of secondary light. For all practical purpose
most of the light in midtown New York after 3 P.M. is reflected light
and it is the loss of this that is most keenly felt.
The losses are palpable. One of the sights that never should be is
Paley Park in the dark in midafternoon. Even at the summer solstice
when the big buildings are in full sun, Paley is so dark the lights on th
waterwall are turned on.
Do the amenities that were bonused offset the loss of sun and
light? It is hard to quantify the loss and assign it a value, but what we
see in front of us indicates that there is no fair offset. As a matter of
logic, could there be one? A particular amenity does not compensate
for the effects of the extra bulk of a building. These effects and the
amenity are independent of each other. No matter how pleasant an
atrium might be for those who use it, it does not itself temper the
downdrafts induced by the tower. It does not temper the shadows cast
by it. By making the shadows possible, indeed, the bonus may do more
harm to some people than it does good to others. And suppose it
wasn't even a good atrium? The offset concept is a sloppy one-rather
like robbing Peter to pay Paul, but without conceding the robbery.
Another cost is the vitality of the street. In the name of freeing
people from congestion on the sidewalks, planners have been bonusing
them away from the sidewalks-to internal spaces that are public, but
not quite public. It is a perverse kind of urban design, and the best
thing about it is that in most cases it has not worked. It would be far
worse for the city if it had.
Another question remains. Eventually the commission saw what
had to be done. But why did it take so long to get around to it?
Research was not the problem. Answering the key questions was
largely a matter of going out on the street and looking; and this could
have been done anytime. On the matter of the arcaded sidewalks, for
example, it took about two days' work to determine that they were not
working and why. Calendar time, however, was something else again.
That was measured in years-twelve in the case of the arcaded sidewalks.
The problem is asking the questions. Some thirteen years elapsed
after the plaza bonus was established before the commission got
around to considering how the plazas were working out. The two days
of work on the arcaded sidewalks could as easily have been done in
1972 as in 1982, and it would have been most helpful to the commission if it had been.
[253]
The time-lag problem is compounded by yet another kind of time
lag. New York has been innovative in planning approaches, zoning
especially, and other cities often follow its lead, sometimes borrowing
not only the measure but the verbatim text of it. But not right away.
They take their time too. So there are two time lags to add up, with
the consequence that cities may adopt a New York measure just about
the time New York is dropping it.
Incentive zoning has had no self-correcting mechanism built into
it. In planning in general, there has been no systematic effort to find
out what has been working and what has not been. Nor is there train-
.", j;
ing or it in most scnools or planning and design. It s od that tis
-N
y
i·
should be so. Planning literature is so full of such terms as "evaluation," "monitoring," and "feedback" that one might assume they were
imbedded in standard operating procedure. They are not. The Army
their comptrollers,
c has its inspector generals, municipal governments
corporations their management consultants. But planning bodies lack
such instruments. You can read through all of the tables of organizas:
; tion, zoning texts, and comprehensive plans without finding a provision or a budget line for so much as one person to go out onto the
street and look.
It is not because planners are uncurious or poor at observation.
As individuals, some planners have a very keen eye for observation
and they enjoy looking at the life of the place they are planning for.
But it is extracurricular, on their own time. The busy work of planning
no room for observation, most certainly not if it could be of an
i has
adversary nature. One could volunteer, of course. Conceivably, a staff
o: man might go up and say, Boss, that idea you pushed through is really
bombing. Conceivably.
It is for want of sustained observation that the time lag between
failure of an approach and recognition of it has been so awesomely
:·
:· long. Consider the major mistakes we have made in city planning and
i. how long we clung to them. Did we have to wait for the dynamiting of
the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis to see that the design
r approach was wrong? For years evidence had been mounting that colonies of high-rise towers were no way to house families. Did we have
to endure the evisceration of our center cities? The destructive effects
of urban renewal were long before our eyes.
Some planners do go out and look. San Francisco's planners do a
·I: lot of walking and looking, and they have been assiduous in reexamining their zoning and development policies. Pittsburgh's planners studied how all the downtown spaces were being used, and they stiffened
ii their requirements on the basis of what they saw. Here and there,
undoubtedly, there might be a few more examples.
i;:
Often it is private groups that do the best observing. Some of it is
i
It is for want of
observation that the
time lag between
failure of an approaci
and recognition of it
has been so
awesomely long. Did
we have to wait for tf
dynamiting of PruittIgoe to see that the
design approach was
flawed? Did we have
wait until our cities
were eviscerated to
question urban
renewal?
t
[254]
CITY
quite professional: groups such as the Municipal Art Society of New
York are forever putting an arm on architects and lawyers and various
specialists to do work, and for free. But the laymen can be just as
valuable. Being untutored in sophisticated planning analysis, they tend
to ask simple questions and to do a lot of looking.
Let me conclude with three examples close to home. One is the
downzoning of the Upper East Side. Neighborhood groups believed
that the moderate scale of the side streets should be given real nrotection. So did the planning commission. A downzoning, however, would
require detailed study of some two hundred blocks if it was to stand
up. At the moment the commission had neither the budget nor the
staff people to tackle the job. Halina Rosenthal, President of the
Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, said her people
would do the job themselves. She organized a corps of volunteer observers. Block by block, they carefully recorded the heights of buildings, current use, and other data. At the end of five months they
presented the completed report to the planning commission. It responded in kind. Within a few months the commission downzoned the
midblocks of most of the side streets of the Upper East Side. Henceforth, buildings could be no higher than the width of the right-of-way,
or sixty feet-the same proportion, by the way, the French laid down
for Paris avenues in the 1600s.
Another example of citizen input is the case of the oversized
spire. It came about because City Club president Sally Goodgold
watched a softball game one day in Central Park. From the diamond
she saw the cluster of towers going up by Carnegie Hall in a new
perspective. One of the towers-City Spire-looked to her to be a bit
higher than an existing building, the height of which she knew. And
City Spire was not supposed to be that high. She mentioned the point
to her fellow watchers. New York Magazine got wind of it and checked
into the matter. Sure enough, the tower was too high-by twelve and a
half feet. The city was shocked. Naughty: Naughty. It slapped the
developer smartly on the wrist. He could keep the spire, but as penance he would have to build additional sp4ae for community dance
groups to use.
A similar case was the overbuilt tower at 108 East Ninety-sixth'
Street. Genie Rice, head of the civic group CIVITAS, suspected that
the developer was going to build it higher than the zoning allowed.
Checking the official documents, she found that because of a misinterpretation of the zoning map the building was indeed going to go higher
-by some twelve stories. The building department rescinded the permit. The developer appealed and proceeded to build the extra eight
stories. CIVITAS was out for blood. The New York State Supreme
he Rise and Fall of Incentive Zoning
[2551
Court ruled that the stories would have to come down. Again the
eveloper appealed, and the matter went to the appellate court. The
ourt has not yet ruled. Whichever way, it is possible the developer
,ill end up equitably: heads he wins, tails he does not lose.
These cases are too mixed up to yield a large moral. But they do
eiterate a point. It is when civic groups and citizens become too supportive, too understanding, that planning and zoning go to hell. Maters don't get set right until they become impatient, angry, meddleome:' most important,
____ -go_ out and_ look.
___ _they
- r -----, when